Special News & Commentaries from Kurdistan

Monday, April 17, 2006

English women charged of murdering Kurdish citizen

An English woman has been charged with the murder of a Kurdish man in Hull, England last week. A Kurd who was arrested at the time has been released because the police are certain he is 100% innocent, a fact confirmed by CCTV cameras in the area where the murder occurred. He is the only witness and is important to prosecute the woman of the murder of his friend.

The problem that remains is one of bad communication. The Kurdish community in Hull believes the other Kurdish man was the killer, but he was not. The police have tried to tell the Kurdish community the facts, but the Kurdish community does not trust the British police. This means that news of the murder has reached Kurdistan without the true facts.

The two Kurds in this situation come from very close families and this could lead to a tragedy between these families in Kurdistan. Only because did not know the truth about this murder. The Kurd who was originally arrested by mistake was actually helping his friend before he died. He is now helping to make sure the woman who committed the murder is convicted and goes to prison. He did not murder his friend.

"I just pray the two families in Kurdistan consider the facts before they act. I pray they read this and know it is true," said a resident of Hull, who wanted to remain anonymous.

"I know how difficult a death in the family is, when you are so far from home. I do know your son will receive justice in the British system and that the murderer will go to prison," told the anonymous source.

Monday, February 20, 2006

An End?

Death is a difficult event to handle whether it be quick or slow and painful such as the demise of this particular blog. The life of a blog depends on its authors, and the authors of this one have moved on to their own individual projects. The legacy of KBU has come to an end. It served as a place where we could all gather to find strength, and in that end the Kurdistan Bloggers Union has been enormously successful. Now life continues onward. I would like to think of this blog as a phoenix and that when the time is right (when it is needed again) KBU will arise from the ashes.

Until then, here are links to the individual authors projects as the Kurdish Dialouge will always continue:

If you would like to keep up on what is going on in the Kurdish blogs in general, I have set up a Kurdish blog aggregator with links to Kurdish blogs in multiple languages, or you can check my Wednesday weekly article on Global Voices.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Jewish medical student visits Kurdistan

"One thing alone seems clear: The Kurds are a people under siege. In the United States we are not."I would like to bring you to the attention of Jonathan Dworkin, who wrote those impressing words, you have just read. He is a medical student in his final year at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Currently he is travelling in South Kurdistan from January to March of 2006.

In his recent post he shows more of the Kurdish sentiment towards Israel, that isn't so hostile towards Jews.

To quote one part of his recent post:

Another friend, a KDP man, explained to me that he supports Israel because he believes chauvanism is an ingrained feature of Arab politics. "They have 25 countries," he said. "And still there is this talk of pushing the Jews into the sea. In Kurdistan we have been fighting this thinking for centuries, and believe me we are very tired."

I advise everyone to take a look into his articles. They are balanced and give a good view on the problems in South-Kurdistan. As a commentator posted:"His blog allows thoughtful insights into the problems we face today in this world".

Sunday, January 22, 2006

National Geographic Article

Well I finally got around to reading this month's National Geographic only to find that they had an excellent article about the Kurds in Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan. It spoke alot about hope amoung the Kurds and the efforts that they are making towards re-building. I found the article to be quite objective which is nice, sometimes main stream media protrayels of the Kurds are either too emotional or so dry as to whither away your interest in the subject entirely. The National Geographic website has some extra features about their article that are fairly interesting.

*And a quick note to some of the other authors on KBU, don't leave me alone on here, ok?

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Information and Help Network for the Bird Flu

I received this email from another group that I work with, and I thought that since so many are concerned about a link between the Kurdish areas and the bird flu (and probably would like to help) I thought that I would pass it along:

From Avian Flu Help Team

Dear Editors/Admins,

Please accept our apologies for the group mailing.

You have all been doing a noble effort in collecting informationonline about Avian Flu. As you can see there are many scatteredresources available right now to find scientific data, information,news and other tidbits. This mail is an effort to invite you alltogether to collaborate together on one effort so that we can put ourcollective minds and hands together in one "Mega" CollaBlog/CollaWiki.

At this point we are in contact with an international network ofvolunteers including India, the Middle East, USA, and several Europeancountries. We have begun work on an H5N1 disaster-response webinformation delivery system. We have developed a diverse volunteercorps of online writers, "bloggers", wiki admins, and now wish totake these efforts to a higher level.

We expect you realize the tremendous value that such a collaborationcould have, both in terms of scientific achievement, humanitarianconcerns, and international relations.

With the common goal of helping the affected and informing the generalpublic about Avian Flu, we would like to start the discussions amongthe various admins of major Avian Flu websites (Blogs, Wiki &Informational Sites), that is you, about coming together on this noblecause. We can then work out the logistics on how, when, where and whoof this effort.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

An Evening with Joe Wilson

Below is a reprint from a post on my personal blog so if some of the personal info in there is confusing I apologize ahead of time.

Last night Mr.3 and I were given the oppurtunity to go and see Ambassador Joe Wilson speak in front of the Salt Lake Chapter of the Council on Foreign Relations. Actually we got to sit at his table, which including a brief 10 minutes of star-struckedness on my part which faded quickly.

For those of you who don't know who he is, Joe Wilson has lately been known as Mr. Valerie Plame (who was "outed" as a CIA employee), but before that he was known as the last American Diplomat to speak with Saddam Hussein in Gulf War 1. But I believe that when the Gulf War broke out he was "acting" Ambassador as the real Ambassador was in the US warning about the possibility of war breaking out at the time war did break out.

Impressions of him: Nice guy when he doesn't talk politics. Fantastic hair, and I would say 95% of the female population in that room would have slept with him if he was willing. He is a self-promoter to the point of being incredibly vain and arrogant. Mr.3 asked him a question privately after the talk and in answering that question told him 3 times to buy his book. Call me crazy but when someone asks you a direct question about 500 tons of yellow-cake uranium that was found in Iraq, the response to that question should not be "buy my book".

What he said that evening: He has a lot of anger about the war in Iraq, as many US democrats do, however it is obvious that his anger is focused on the fact that the current administration did not listen and follow his recommendations. His bush-bashing is completely personal, I do not wish to really discuss the whole issue of his wife being "outed" but he used that in his speech (and probably his book as well) as a further reasoning why he must have been right...it was a case of "I was injured personally, I am a victim, and therefore my opinion is the most correct one", which logically is a load of crap. He wasn't listened to in matters about the Middle East because his knowledge is severely lacking, he may be great and wonderful with Africa, but the Middle East is a completely different animal...here is why:

His definition of weapons of mass destruction: is limited to strictly Nuclear weapons because they alter society and civilization. Biological weapons are weapons of terror and do not affect society in the long term. Anyone who knows about the atrocities Saddam carried out on the Kurdish populations in Iraq can tell you that biological warfare effects you on a systemic level...hum...let's see birth defects, a skewed population demographic, low birth rate, high infant mortalitiy rate, and don't forget little things like the increase in the snake population as all of the birds in the region were killed and there was no natural predators for the snakes. But apparently those are only side effects of "terror weapons".

His lack of knowledge on terrorism in general: Apparently he is under the impression that Ansar el Islam was a pro-Kurdish group rather than a group that was killing Kurds. He also stated that "25 million ethnic people" is no reason to not support our NATO allies. First, where did he get his numbers, secondly the Kurdish situation in Iraq and in Turkey are vastly different and you can't lump them together...but then again he seems to think that Kurds=terrorists. Oddly enough two seconds after he made that statement about the Kurds he stated that HAMAS and Hizbullah were doing things the "right way" in regards to elections, but he failed to mention the whole terrorist bombings which killed innocents. He classifies himself in the lines of a "Progressive" but he isn't really, just another diplomat/pseudo celebrity that believes in the cause that is most popular at the moment. But can you expect anymore from someone who prides himself on delveloping the US stragey in the Rwanda genocide, because we all know how well that turned out.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Because I liked the Title...

Sunday, January 08, 2006

What we should be talking about?

There seems to be alot going on there that this particular blog has been silent about, particularly the bird flu and predictions for the new year. I know that these are odd things to lump together in one blog but I am going to do it anyway.

First, predictions for the New Year: last week the Daily Koswrote about a recent KnightRidder column that stated the Iraq army had 10,000 Kurdish soldiers that were loyal to the peshmerga leaders...duh...nothing really new. However, it seemed with this news that the rest of the world realized that there is a definite possibility that an independent Kurdistan could arise if there was (God forbid) civil war in Iraq. Of course, as soon as the Daily Kos covered it, it seems that half of the political blogs in the US began to speculate as to an independent Kurdistan. The only Kurdish blogger (that I saw--I might be wrong and please let me know if I am) that covered even part of that news was Vladimir. The lack of response from the Kurdish bloggers makes me wonder if we really missed an opportunity to bring the issue of an independent Kurdistan to a wider global audience? Or is it just more of the same?

Next item up, the bird flu deaths in Turkey, specifically in the Van region in Northern Kurdistan. While the deaths have been in rural areas and also in Kurdish areas there has been speculation that the bird flu thing is another extension of the Kurdish question. Some of our Kurdish bloggers have written excellent posts supporting that position including Mizgin from Rasti and Vladimir in From Holland to Kurdistan. Ok folks, it is the bird flu, a pandemic that is affecting the whole world, it should not be used as an aid to point out the Turkish Government's treatment of the Kurds, rather it should be used to discuss poverty on a global scale. I know that there will be plenty of people who are mad at me for this point of view (and I have a feeling that some of the comments will be harsh but I will take them), I am just of the opinion that there are some things that it would be wise of us to exploit to further knowledge of the plight of the Kurds, and some things -like this- that are no help to us at all.